UK politics thread

[Graeme]

You do understand that there's more to that decision than someone saying "Guys, I've got a great idea, we should make men and women use the same toilets! Then we can totally perv on each other..."? It's to do with the fact that there are some people who genuinely do struggle with their gender identity and providing facilities to accommodate this. I don't imagine that Male and Female toilets would be made illegal, but these "general" toilets would be available for whoever wanted to use them, presumably they would be exclusively cubicles, so what's the big deal?

As opposed to your chosen approach to LGBT people, which seems to be "Let's just pretend they don't exist and continue to legislate exclusively for straight people." Typical right-wing view of "as long as normal people (people like me) are fine, who gives a flying fuck about anyone else?"

Oh dear. You really are, loopy left.

A 'transgender cubicle' on High Street, Glasgow. How often do you imagine it will be used per year? How often, truly? Factor in, cost of maintenance, homophobic graffiti, etc. Repeat in every high street in Britain.

Thank you for the compliment, regardless of how it was intended.

You do realise that there would be nothing noticeably "Transgender" about this particular public toilet? I doubt the signs outside it would say anything other than "WC", they're certainly not going to say "USE THIS TOILET IF YOU'RE A TRANNY LOL", so the likelihood is that any passing Glaswegians looking to take a pish would quite happily use it, after a certain time on a Friday, I doubt many of them would care anyway.

If you've ever been to a music festival then there're often gender-neutral toilet blocks and everyone just mucks in and gets on with it.

Poor choice of words there!

Totally deliberate .

[Snake-Pit]

You know the Greens were proposing trans-gender outside lavatories?

Finally, a good idea; Soho could do with a couple of those...

Soho' pretty much just one big toilet isn't it?

Now that I can't argue.

It's like a bathroom and everybody's having sex in it.

[GivenToFly]

Hey Diesel, I found your perfect candidate!

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/election-candidate-wants-gay-people-jailed-adultery-made-illegal-and-rock-bands-outlawed-31176105.html

Edited April 28, 2015 by GivenToFly

[DieselDaisy]

Hey Diesel, I found your perfect candidate!

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/election-candidate-wants-gay-people-jailed-adultery-made-illegal-and-rock-bands-outlawed-31176105.html

Is this the moment when I mention how many Queen albums are in my collection?

[Facekicker]

It amazes me how many people fall for the media's scaremongering regarding UKIP. I wonder how many of them have actually bothered their hole to read their manifesto and instead just believe the gibberish they read or hear in the media?

Believe it or not but a lot of people in Ireland support UKIP, which might seem strange to people in the UK but which makes perfect sense when you read what UKIP are proposing and what Ireland has actually EXPERIENCED since 2008. When you've lived through 7 years of economic hell in a country that has lost its economic sovereignty to the Troika (EU,ECB,IMF) and has been teetering on the brink of total collapse then it forces you to reassess what the fuck you are doing, where you are going and how the fuck you got to where you are as a society.

Ireland's treatment by Europe to save the poxy fucking euro has been nothing short of disgraceful. Our people have been forced into taking BILLIONS of banking debt to save the euro and German and French banks from going bust. It is outrageous.

And the ONLY politician who stood up and argued our case in Europe was Nigel Farage. I might point out that his first wife is Irish and his children have Irish citizenship.

Don't even get me started on the farce that was the Lisbon Treaty vote. Again, only Farage had our back as our own spineless quisling politicians betrayed us to back Europe.

[DieselDaisy]

Didn't the Irish vote 'no' on the constitution only for your MPs to repeat the referendum until you delivered the 'correct' answer? I might have got that wrong but I remember something incredibly cynical concerning Ireland and the signing of the treaty. We did not get one. Our political elite does not trust us with votes on the European Union.

[Facekicker]

Didn't the Irish vote 'no' on the constitution only for your MPs to repeat the referendum until you delivered the 'correct' answer? I might have got that wrong but I remember something incredibly cynical concerning Ireland and the signing of the treaty. We did not get one. Our political elite does not trust us with votes on the European Union.

Pretty much. And on the second vote Europe and our Government threatened Armageddon if we didn't vote Yes.

Hooray for democracy. I voted No twice. Fuck them.

[sturginho]

Didn't the Irish vote 'no' on the constitution only for your MPs to repeat the referendum until you delivered the 'correct' answer? I might have got that wrong but I remember something incredibly cynical concerning Ireland and the signing of the treaty. We did not get one. Our political elite does not trust us with votes on the European Union.

Yeah they changed the name from "Constitution" to "Lisbon Treaty" and then held the referendum again! Thing is most countries ratified the Constitution/Treaty without putting it to a referendum, but the three countries that had referenda as I recall, Ireland, France and Netherlands, all returned no votes. If the UK had had a referendum a no vote would have been pretty much guaranteed (I am pro EU but even I would have voted No) and I think many other countries too, but they went ahead with it regardless. Hooray for democracy!

[DieselDaisy]

I heard Miliband got a pasting on Question Time.

[Facekicker]

I heard Miliband got a pasting on Question Time.

Good.

[Chris1989]

I got 90% Cons, 89% UKIP and 71% Labour.

Quite amusing really, and I'm undecided as to voting. I support parts of each party, and as with most things each party either goes too far or not far enough for my liking.

I'll wait for Charlie Brooker's Election Wipe.

[Len Cnut]

45 years later and still arguing the same toss.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

Does anyone else think that Cleggy looks like a certain, flop Irish limited overs England captain,

[Snake-Pit]

That's racist!

Not all white people look the same y'know

[Len Cnut]

That's racist!

Not all white people look the same y'know

Which is probably why he only drew a comparison between two and not a billion or so

[Snake-Pit]

ELECTION DAY IN THE UK

I wonder; Why's it always a Thursday?

It just dawned on me; But why's it always in May?

[DieselDaisy]

ELECTION DAY IN THE UK

I wonder; Why's it always a Thursday?

It just dawned on me; But why's it always in May?

Thursdays is just, a tradition. Apparently the weekend (Friday-Saturday) was not convenient due to 'drunken voters' and Sunday was a obviously day of worship. Thursday is historically a market day, so people tended to be in town at the time. It has only been sequentially May since 1997. Before that, an election was held in any given month: December (1918), July (1945), April (1992). It has as much to do with the timing of the closure of the previous Parliament and calling of an election as anything else; historically it has been the prerogative of the outgoing government to call an election and this could happen at any time, as per the concurrent political climate. Since the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (2011) however, it will now always be May (of the fifth year).

[Snake-Pit]

I've voted.

I voted @ 20 past 7 this morning.

When I got there, there was this younger black kid/guy dressed up smart, like he was going to church, and then this indian/asian girl walked in behind me...

I left thinking 'whoever said we need more young minority voters didn't know what they were talking about'

[DieselDaisy]

I bet you voted Green? I have you as a Green - Green or Lib Dem?

[sturginho]

ELECTION DAY IN THE UK

I wonder; Why's it always a Thursday?

It just dawned on me; But why's it always in May?

Thursdays is just, a tradition. Apparently the weekend (Friday-Saturday) was not convenient due to 'drunken voters' and Sunday was a obviously day of worship. Thursday is historically a market day, so people tended to be in town at the time. It has only been sequentially May since 1997. Before that, an election was held in any given month: December (1918), July (1945), April (1992). It has as much to do with the timing of the closure of the previous Parliament and calling of an election as anything else; historically it has been the prerogative of the outgoing government to call an election and this could happen at any time, as per the concurrent political climate. Since the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (2011) however, it will now always be May (of the fifth year).

Yeah I think then new legislation sets it in stone that it should be the first thursday of may every 5 years, does it make any provisions for what might happen if nobody manages to form a government and we need another election?

I bet you voted Green? I have you as a Green - Green or Lib Dem?

I reckon he voted for the Respect party

[DieselDaisy]

Yeah I think then new legislation sets it in stone that it should be the first thursday of may every 5 years, does it make any provisions for what might happen if nobody manages to form a government and we need another election?

If Parliament decides to vote to dissolve itself, or produces a vote of no confidence in the government, then an early election is formed. I am not actually sure what would happen if no government is formed - Parliament would be returned regardless in the new term. This is what everybody is debating about; it is rather new territory. There is a sort of, tradition that the previous Prime Minister should remain in the face of deadlock. The presumption is that there will always be some sort of government formed, even if it is just an interim government in place for Parliament to immediately dissolve itself and call a new election.

[Len Cnut]

Had an oddly political conversation with my Dad this morning, saw him this morning and he's like so who you voting for boy? And I'm like, look, I probably won't bother, can't be bothered, would be Labour by default but i can't fuckin' bring myself to put my money on Milliband, Tory is a no-no flat out, Lib Debs are a bunch of substitute teachers, Green Party I'm expecting to turn into Mutant Ninja Turtles any minute now and Nigel Farage can suck my cock (the latter 3 are my opinion and weren't communicated to my old man ).

Anyway, he threw up an interesting proposition, for a laugh, doing my Harold Steptoe bit, i was like Dad you should really vote Labour, being a working class man and that. Moreso than me, you were like, proper working class. And he's like fuck them, they don't wanna do nothing for working class that are actually working. And i was like what do you mean? And he's like, OK, well 40% inheritance tax. My old man started with nothing, no silver spoon, not even much of an education and today in terms of assests, you could probably strip him and end up with like...2 million, all said and done? The sum of his lifetimes work. And he's like I'm a working class man, i worked for every penny of that money, I've not stolen it or gained it through false pretences, the whole point of me making all that money and doing all that was so I'd have something to leave to my kids, I'm 57 years old now, what do i want with a lot of money, it's basically for my kids, so they'll have a little something to get a head start in life.

Now is it fair if I've been paying taxes anyway on all this money, all my life, for the purposes of knocking it onto my kids, for them to then take 40% of it? And if you don't have that much money to hand they ain't gonna hang on and have it on the weekly, they're gonna make you sell up and hand it over. And it's not like it's someone with 50 million or 100 million where you could afford to lose 40% and still have something left over (though he thought that unreasonable too), you'll more or less nothing of it left. So don't you give me all that bollocks about party of the working class.

As well as 'your generation make me fuckin' laugh, if you did half as much work as you did chat about being working class you might get somewhere, you're all gob, what work have you done in your life?!?'

What do yous make of that? It occured to me that he's right. He is a working class bloke, the fact that he has a few quid now is literally based on graft, i mean he had fuck all as a kid, literally fuck all. So I guess I'm presenting this proposition to those that believe in higher taxation for people with a few quid...what do you make of that, as an idea?

Edited May 7, 2015 by Len B'stard

[DieselDaisy]

The notion of Labour being 'the party of the working class' ended in 1997.

[sturginho]

Had an oddly political conversation with my Dad this morning, saw him this morning and he's like so who you voting for boy? And I'm like, look, I probably won't bother, can't be bothered, would be Labour by default but i can't fuckin' bring myself to put my money on Milliband, Tory is a no-no flat out, Lib Debs are a bunch of substitute teachers, Green Party I'm expecting to turn into Mutant Ninja Turtles any minute now and Nigel Farage can suck my cock (the latter 3 are my opinion and weren't communicated to my old man ).

Anyway, he threw up an interesting proposition, for a laugh, doing my Harold Steptoe bit, i was like Dad you should really vote Labour, being a working class man and that. Moreso than me, you were like, proper working class. And he's like fuck them, they don't wanna do nothing for working class that are actually working. And i was like what do you mean? And he's like, OK, well 40% inheritance tax. My old man started with nothing, no silver spoon, not even much of an education and today in terms of assests, you could probably strip him and end up with like...2 million, all said and done? The sum of his lifetimes work. And he's like I'm a working class man, i worked for every penny of that money, I've not stolen it or gained it through false pretences, the whole point of me making all that money and doing all that was so I'd have something to leave to my kids, I'm 57 years old now, what do i want with a lot of money, it's basically for my kids, so they'll have a little something to get a head start in life.

Now is it fair if I've been paying taxes anyway on all this money, all my life, for the purposes of knocking it onto my kids, for them to then take 40% of it? And if you don't have that much money to hand they ain't gonna hang on and have it on the weekly, they're gonna make you sell up and hand it over. And it's not like it's someone with 50 million or 100 million where you could afford to lose 40% and still have something left over (though he thought that unreasonable too), you'll more or less nothing of it left. So don't you give me all that bollocks about party of the working class.

As well as 'your generation make me fuckin' laugh, if you did half as much work as you did chat about being working class you might get somewhere, you're all gob, what work have you done in your life?!?'

What do yous make of that? It occured to me that he's right. He is a working class bloke, the fact that he has a few quid now is literally based on graft, i mean he had fuck all as a kid, literally fuck all. So I guess I'm presenting this proposition to those that believe in higher taxation for people with a few quid...what do you make of that, as an idea?

I agree with your dad on this

[Snake-Pit]

I voted Lib Dem, I then got home and researched who I voted for.